Word Meaning and Syntax: Approaches to the Interface

Stephen Wechsler

Abstract

The interface between word meaning and syntax is among the most controversial and elusive problems in contemporary linguistics. This book approaches the interface from both sides of the relation, and surveys a range of views on the mapping between them, with an emphasis on lexical approaches to argument structure. The fundamental problem of word meaning is analyzed first, with discussions of vagueness and polysemy, including theories of sense extension, coercion, prototypes, probabilistic grammar, and mixed categories. This is complemented with a look at the roles of world knowledge and normat ... More

The interface between word meaning and syntax is among the most controversial and elusive problems in contemporary linguistics. This book approaches the interface from both sides of the relation, and surveys a range of views on the mapping between them, with an emphasis on lexical approaches to argument structure. The fundamental problem of word meaning is analyzed first, with discussions of vagueness and polysemy, including theories of sense extension, coercion, prototypes, probabilistic grammar, and mixed categories. This is complemented with a look at the roles of world knowledge and normative aspects of word meaning. The argument-taking properties of verbs and other predicators are surveyed, including description and analysis of subjectߝobject asymmetry, object omission and demotion, causative and inchoative alternations, other direct versus oblique alternations, unaccusativity, the representation of motion, and category conversions between verb and noun. Theories of lexical semantic structure, including thematic role types, proto-role properties, decomposition, mereologies, and measures of affectedness, are presented next. This is followed by a description of formal theories and frameworks for capturing the mapping from word meaning to syntactic structure, including LFG lexical mapping theory, HPSG, and Sign-Based Construction Grammar, as well as constructional and syntactic approaches. Arguments for lexicalist approaches to argument structure are presented in a special chapter. That chapter discusses the historical pendulum between lexical and phrasal approaches, neo-Davidsonianism, and other currently relevant aspects of the debate.

End Matter

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